


Only Time Will Tell

by sidewinder



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Established Relationship, Future Fic, M/M, Sad and Happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-04 18:08:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15152726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidewinder/pseuds/sidewinder
Summary: When your soulmate died, they never really left you.In fact, it was only in death that you learned if the one you loved actually was “The One”.





	Only Time Will Tell

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ThatBohoFemme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatBohoFemme/gifts).



When your soulmate died, they never really left you.

In fact, it was only in death that you learned if the one you loved actually was “The One”.

If the two of you met and made a deep and meaningful connection during your lifetime, then your souls remained linked forever more. When one’s physical life ended, their spirit remained bound to this earth, and to their mate, for as long as the other remained in the realm of the living.

What happened when both passed on? No one still alive knew for certain. Faiths across the worlds proclaimed many different possibilities, but none could provide a definitive answer.

Fin had never needed the confirmation of death to know that John was his soulmate, and that he was John’s. They’d both known it in their hearts, in every moment they spent together through the years, as much as they’d resisted it initially. It had seemed improbable but then undeniable—to themselves, and in time to all who knew them well. Their initial resistance to the idea came not only because of how unlikely it seemed, but also due to the risks entailed in its acceptance.

 _“You’ll likely be the one stuck with my incorporeal ass for who knows how long,”_ John had cautioned Fin, on more than one occasion.

_“Just ’cause you’re older than me? That ain’t no guaranty of who’s gonna die first.”_

_“No, but it is a statistical likelihood, even given our chosen profession.”_

_“Not like I have a real choice here, do I?”_ Fin had replied, repeatedly _. “I ain’t walking away from this based on what we do or don’t know about the future.”_

That future had, after years which passed far too quickly, one day become the inevitable. And as Fin blew out the candles on his eightieth birthday cake to the encouragement of assembled family and friends, he felt John’s hands on his shoulders and his husband’s breath joining his own in the effort.

But Fin was the only one aware of his presence.

* * *

At least it hadn’t been depression or dementia—those had always been John’s greatest fears. To lose his mind, his very sense of being, had frightened him far more than any illness of the flesh ever had.

Or even death itself.

No, a sudden heart attack ended up claiming his life. Too sudden, as far as Fin was concerned, robbing them of even the chance to say any proper goodbye before entering this…“new phase” of their life together.

John passed on in his sleep one night, at the most respectable age of eighty-nine. Fin only knew when he woke up in bed feeling John’s arms around him from behind, but upon turning into that embrace, he discovered no one there.

Not physically. He found John’s body on the sofa where he’d fallen asleep watching the late night news the evening before. The body was cold, his soul departed from it hours ago.

 _It’s alright,_ he heard John telling him, through his numbing shock and confusion. The voice was in Fin’s head, as he’d never heard it before. John knelt down beside him, studying his own lifeless form with a calm curiosity while Fin fought back against his own panic and grief.

_I’m still here with you, love. And now we know for sure that what we’ve felt was true._

It should have been a comfort. But it would take a very long time for Fin to see it that way.

* * *

Fin remembered Elliot’s funeral, quite a few years before. Cancer had claimed their old coworker at an unexpectedly early age, though John had made a grim observation about how something dark had no doubt been eating away at him from the inside for decades.

Liv had been there, naturally, among all those still standing who could make their appearances. After the funeral Fin had gone up to Olivia, who had been so very visibly shaken and upset.

“Sorry, Liv. I know you two were close.” Until Elliot had left her—and SVU entirely—without even saying goodbye.

“We were,” she’d said with a distracted nod. “But…it’s not that. He reached out to me several months ago, to let me know what was happening. To apologize for leaving the way he did, and explain why he’d felt he had to.”

Fin had waited for her to go on, silent. John had gone off to talk with Kathy and the Stabler children, now most all adults beginning their own families. Liv had finally continued, “Kathy pulled me aside before the service. Asking me if I’ve… _seen_ Elliot. Since he died.”

Fin had raised an eyebrow. Of course he’d noticed it years ago—how much it seemed they belonged to each other, just like him and John. “Kathy hasn’t?” Fin had asked, and Olivia had shaken her head.

A lifetime and five children invested into believing they were soulmates. A strong faith which had kept Elliot from consummating more than a working relationship and friendship with Liv…and yet...

“Has he?” Fin had asked with caution. “Has he come to you, Liv?”

“I…” she had begun, and then looked to the side. As if _listening_ to someone who wasn’t there. She had wiped at reddened eyes and then brusquely told him, “I’m sorry. I need to go.”

Olivia had never mentioned Elliot in Fin’s presence again—though soon, she had left SVU and slipped away from all her old connections there.

Fin and John had agreed it was no doubt for the best.

* * *

For a time, John’s incorporeal presence only made continuing on harder for Fin, not easier. And Fin almost became a statistic in the high rate of suicide among surviving soulmates in the first year after one passed on.

Because it was far from easy feeling John near, so close, yet his touch only a shadow of what it had once been.

And there was the way John seemed to fade into the background of Fin’s consciousness in the presence of others. That sometimes left Fin feeling withdrawn from the rest of the world, disinterested in engaging in it because he didn’t want to lose that connection with John even briefly, out of a strange fear of it never coming back. Other times he actively wanted to escape that feeling, finding it almost claustrophobic. He would seek refuge in staying busy with other people: his son and Alejandro’s growing family, a great-granddaughter born just weeks before John’s passing.

Some days he wondered if it wasn’t all wishful thinking or delusion on his part. Maybe in his own grief or approaching senility he only imagined John was his “one”, because he couldn’t bear the alternative. Such things happened, sometimes in sorrow, sometimes in obsession. Back in their SVU days they’d dealt with more than a few men and women who had killed to try to prove to their victim they were soulmates. But in death they’d only found silence and emptiness, and that had driven them on to even worse crimes.

And so Fin came to understand why some rushed to join their mate in death—or on to reincarnation, another chance at life which would repeat (or so many believed) until finally encountering their mate.

It was John who stopped his hand, one night several months after his passing as Fin sat with his gun in his hand and an empty bottle of vodka beside him. He suddenly felt John’s fingers gripping his own, lifted his eyes to see that familiar face before him.

John’s expression was stern. Resolute. Even a little bit pissed off.

_No. It’s not your time._

“This ain’t fuckin’ fair.”

 _When has anything in this universe ever been fair? Murder police, sex crimes...if life were fair we wouldn_ ’ _t have had jobs._

Fin shook his head. “I don’t know if I can do this. Or why I should have to.”

_You do this now for me. For us. And you’ll see why. We both will._

“When?”

_Soon. Or soon enough. No need to rush._

And Fin cried that night, really let it all out like he hadn’t allowed himself to do until then. And he felt John holding him tight through it all, until he finally gave up in exhaustion and fell asleep in their damn ugly but comfortable recliner that was almost as old as he was.

When he woke up in the morning, he discovered his gun missing. What most disturbed him about that was John wasn’t able to physically touch or move anything. Not on his own at least, not any longer.

“Did you somehow take over my body? Take me sleepwalking?” Fin accused him, worried.

John only hummed as he lounged on the sofa, in his old spot, eyes closed, grinning.

Fin ignored him for several days after that.

He never found that gun.

* * *

“Jesse was asking about you the other day.”

“Yeah?”

Amanda nodded and took another bite of her sandwich. It was good to see her for one of their as-regular-as-could-be-managed lunch dates; Fin liked spending time with his old partner, and getting the gossip on the latest comings-and-goings at SVU since she’d taken over for Liv. “She was hoping to see you when she’s in the area in a few weeks. I mean, I imagine you’ll be with your own family on Thanksgiving, but if not, Sonny and I would be happy to have you over. Or you could just stop by any night while she’s home, I know she’d be thrilled.”

“Okay, I’ll let you know.-” He hadn’t really thought about the upcoming holiday, or made any real plans for it. The past year’s Christmas gathering—his first without John in more years that he cared to count—had been hard enough. But he also knew, with his own advancing age, that his chances to see his son and family were too important and rare not to be treasured.

“Can I ask something…sort of personal, Fin?” And before hearing his answer, Amanda pushed forward. “I’m just wondering, what’s it like?”

“What’s what like.”

“You know…the whole soulmate thing. I mean…I’ve known a few other people who did for sure find their mate, but not close family or friends. My momma certainly didn’t. My grandma claimed she and grandpa Earl were soulmates, that he was eternally nagging her just like he’d done when he was alive. But she claimed a lot of things that none of us really believed for one second.”

Fin snorted at that. “It’s good, I guess. Hard to get used to.” He knew she was curious because her and Sonny had been a lot like him and John—seemingly opposites and always at each other at first. But time had brought them together despite their best efforts to stay apart, and both seemed so happy since then.

“Is it like…having a second person in your head or something? Or another shadow behind you?”

“Sometimes, I guess.” Fin contemplated one more fork-full of his omelette. He didn’t even like Greek omelettes; that had  been John’s breakfast of choice, not his. So why had he ordered it? Glancing up, past Amanda across him him, he caught John’s shadowy form reading the newspaper over another diner’s shoulder, the woman completely unaware. John glanced up and met Fin’s eyes with a wink, and Fin had to roll his eyes. “It’s more like…when I need him, he’s there. Sometimes I don’t realize that I need him when I do, so it catches me by surprise. And sometimes he just annoys the hell out of me, too, that ain’t anything new. But it’s all right…it’s good.”

And it was, though never as good as it had been before.

* * *

A short time later and Fin was the one asking the same opening question of John.

“So what’s it like?”

_What’s that?_

“You know. Being dead.”

_Freeing, in a way. Though I’m still grounded here with you. But it’s nice not to deal with arthritic knees and creaky bones any longer. I’d forgotten what that was like._

Fin was sitting in the park. It was a warm Spring day. John didn’t appear in the same form to him every time; sometimes he looked as he did when they’d met, decades before, in a dark suit and wearing dark glasses and his hair dyed black to disguise the creeping grey. On this occasion he appeared much as he did when he’d retired from the DA’s office, complaining of how there was nothing left for him to do but to turn into another old crackpot feeding the pigeons in the park.

Which was exactly what Fin was doing right now.

_I miss weed._

“I don’t miss that shit stinking up our apartment.”

_I was always considerate and smoked out on the balcony._

“Yeah and then you brought the smell right in with you.” A pigeon landed, cooing at Fin’s feet, searching for crumbs. He strutted right through John’s semi-transparent foot, which was disconcerting. Fin remembered many a night bitching about John going for a kiss with that dank-ass breath after smoking a joint.

He missed those nights.

_You need a new hobby, Fin._

“You need to tell me why I can’t just end this bullshit and come along with you, wherever we’re going next.”

_I told you, it’s not your time yet. And don’t ask me how I know, or why, because I don’t have those answers. But there must be something you’re still destined to accomplish in this plane of existence._

“Dunno what it could possibly be.”

_Neither do I. So let’s go to the movies or something this afternoon. I may be dead, but I still want to see all of this year’s Oscar nominees._

Fin snorted. And a few minutes later, they left the park.

Together. As it was meant to be.


End file.
